Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Bible

Chapter 1. The World of SQL Server

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Why choose SQL Server?

• Understanding the core of SQL Server: the Relational Database Engine

• Approaching SQL Server

• Making sense of SQL Server's many services and components

• What's New in SQL Server 2008

Welcome to SQL Server 2008.

At the Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta 2009 SQL keynote, I walked through the major SQL Server 2008 new features and asked the question, "Cool or Kool-Aid?"

I've worked with SQL Server since version 6.5 and I'm excited about this newest iteration because it reflects a natural evolution and maturing of the product. I believe it's the best release of SQL Server so far. There's no Kool-Aid here—it's all way cool.

SQL Server is a vast product and I don't know any sane person who claims to know all of it in depth. In fact, SQL Server is used by so many different types of professions to accomplish so many different types of tasks, it can be difficult to concisely define it, but here goes:

SQL Server 2008: Microsoft's enterprise client-server relational database product, with T-SQL as its primary programming language.

However, SQL Server is more than just a relational database engine:

• Connecting to SQL Server is made easy with a host of data connectivity options and a variety of technologies to import and export data, such as Tabular Data Stream (TDS), XML, Integration Services, bulk copy, SQL Native Connectivity, OLE DB, ODBC, and distributed query with Distributed Transaction Coordinator, to name a few.

• The engine works well ...